Airplane lifting device



May 30, 1961 o. TINO AIRPLANE LIFTING DEVICE 5 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed June 15/ 1956 INVENTOR. OVID TINQ flI/y May 30, 1961 O. TINO 2,986,359

AIRPLANE LIFTING DEVICE Filed June 15, 1956 5 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTOR. OVID TINO 0. TlNO AIRPLANE LIFTING DEVICE May 30, 1961 5 Sheets-Sheet 3 Filed June 15, 1956 INVENTOR OVID TINO May 30, 1961 0. TlNO 2,986,359

AIRPLANE LIFTING DEVICE Filed June 15, 1956 5 Sheets-Sheet 4 INVENTOR OVID TINO 3 BY Maw ATTORNEY May 30, 1961 O. TlNO AIRPLANE LIFTING DEVICE 5 Sheets-Sheet 5 Filed June 15, 1956 INVENTOR dvlo TINO ATTORNEY increasing force without any increase in energy.

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AIRPLANE LIFTING DEVICE Ovid Tino, 310 W. 106th St, New York, N.Y.

Filed June 15, 1956, Ser. No. 591,752

14 Claims. (Cl. 244-42) One of the purposes of the present invention is to provide means to enable an aircraft to take off and land vertically, that is, at zero horizontal velocity.

Another purpose is to provide a jet pump reactor, either as an individual unit or as a series of individual units and either as a single bank of uni-ts or as a series of banks or units, and apply this to an airplane for vertical lifting;

the individual units comprising either a circular opening A further object of my invention is to utilize a small quantity of air at high speed, and to set in motion large masses of air moving at a moderate speed, and thereby It is a further object of this invention to utilize means for balancing the gravity component in ahorizontally moving airplane thereby permitting the entire power plant of the plane to be devoted to horizontal flight.

Other objects will be apparent from a reading of the specification, claims and drawings.

With the foregoing and other objects in view as will appear from a reading of the following specification and claims, the invention resides in the novel arrangement and combination of parts and in the details of construction and process of manufacture hereinafter described and claimed, it being understood that changes in the precise embodiment of the invention may be made within the scope of what is claimed without departing from the spirit of the invention. It will be further understood that the invention is susceptible of embodiment in many and various forms, some of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawing, and that the structural details or particular steps of the method herein set forth may be varied to suit particular purposes and still remain within the inventive concept.

Referring briefly to the drawings,

Fig. 1 illustrates the airfoil or wing of an airplane in which my jet pump reactors are located.

Fig. 2 illustrates one type of jet pump in which a single central jet is used.

Fig. 3 shows a plan view of Fig. 2.

Fig. 4 shows a modified form of my invention in whic an annular jet opening is used.

Fig. 5 is a plan view of Fig. 4.

Fig. 6 shows a further modification and a more practical application of my jet pump.

Fig. 7 is a top plan view of the jet pump illustrated in Fig. 6.

Fig. 8 is a modified form of Fig. 6 in which burner elements are installed in the pressure chamber.

Fig. 9 shows my jet pump reactors in a flying wing.

2,986,359 latented May so,

ice I 2 F Fig. 10 is a plan view of the flying wing illustrated in Fig. 11 is substantially a cross-sectional view and shows one application of my jet pump in a regular type wing of a supersonic airplane.

' Fig. 12 is a cross-sectional view taken on line 1'212 of Fig. 6.

Fig. 13 illustrates an airplane with fields of jet pumps in the wings. I

Fig. 14 is an enlarged view similar to Fig. 6 but drawn more nearly to approximate scale.

Through very powerful suction of air through a hole in the surface of a body it is possible to obtain a lowering of pressure that can go to the limit when the air in the opening reaches the speed of sound. The main difficulty that opposes such a device is the very great amount of energy required and as a consequence the impractical dimensions of the mechanical apparatus involved. Depression or lowering of pressure can also be obtained by letting air or gases escape out of opening over continuous curved surfaces (effect of Coanda) or let air pass at high velocity above an opening and at the same time suck through the opening. But all these means involve high velocities of the air and therefore high energies.

The second possibility consists in accelerating downward a mass of air or gas and obtaining a lifting force through reaction.

The same force can be obtained with small mass of air and high velocity, or vice versa, and the energy involved increases with the square of the velocity. It can be clearly seen that the advantage lies in acting upon large amounts of air and accelerating it at small velocity. It is mainly this fact that explains the success of the helicopter which through its rotor acts upon large quantities of air.

The basic idea of the present invention is to act in the end result uponlarge amounts of air and at the same time to eliminate the mechanical difiiculties. The solution is to create an aerodynamic lever to speak in terms of analogy with mechanical devices. In fact the device is divided in two main parts; the first one acting mechanically by means of a compressor upon a small amount of air and giving it a high kinetic energy (that is, the entire amount of energy required by the system) and a second part in which the kinetic energy attained by the small amount of air is used largely to accelerate huge amounts of air and thus obtain a large momentum with a relatively small amount of energy.

As the first part of air which is acted upon does not lose its energy in the environment space, as in the case of turbo jets, its specific energy can be chosen to be fairly high and so the resulting dimensions of the compressor unit remain in a practical range.

The apparatus embodying the present invention is composed of two main groups. The first group takes in air from the environment and compresses it at a low rate. This is done by a low ratio compressor unit, as 19 in Fig. 10, or, if the aircraft uses turbo jet propulsion, the compressed air can be taken at the one of the early stages of the compressor of the turbo jet as 43 in Fig. 13. This air is then fed to the second group where the potential energy of the thus compressed air is transformed in kinetic energy. This kinetic energy is partly given to new masses of air taken in by the apparatus of said second group and the mixture, after having reached a resultant average speed, is slowed down to raise the potential energy i.e., the pressure, to the desired level. Finally the whole mass of air is again accelerated to balance the internal pressure, and in this way the reaction is created.

The apparatus that makes possible the above mentioned transformations consists in a multitude of modified jet large surfaces.

In each unit, the air coming from the compressor is accelerated at high speed in the first nozzle of the pump, as at 9 in Fig. 6, and forms a thin high speed jet entermg the cylindrical part 16 of the pump. The air surrounding the jet is accelerated through the friction force at the contact surface between the jet and the rest of the ans. Dur ng the passage through the cylindrical part, the mixing of the two streams of air has taken place and it has a resultant mean speed as required by the laws of energy. To obtain a pressure gradient between the en trance and the end, the cylindrical part is formed into a conlcal taper 11 in which a pressure rise occurs according to Bernoullis law. If the pump would be ended solely by the taper then the pressure at the end would equal the atmospheric pressure, and the gradient would only create a depressed pressure at the entrance of the pump.

In the construction of my invention, the pump is contmued by a cylindrical part which forms a pressure chamber, and further continued by a second nozzle in which the an is accelerated again to the required speed. Thus 1t is possible to obtain a pressure greater than the atmosphere without the necessity of compressing mechanically the whole amount of air involved.

To better the ratio of the quantity of compressed air to quantity jet air, multiple stage of jet pumps could be constructed, but the maximum possible gradient of pressure is also diminished. With the idea of increasing this ratio, if necessary, a modified design of pump element was developed as illustrated in Figs. 4 and 5. This presents the advantage of having a hollow jet thus increasmg the contact surface by almost twice for the same diameter, and at the same time reducing the volume of the inner cylinder. The velocity profile in the inner fluid pipe has a better shape than that of the surrounding fluid because the surrounding fluid necessarily has a velocity profile starting with zero value where it contacts the solid wall of the pump, and reaches approximately the jet velocity at the point of contact with the high speed air.

It follows from the above considerations that the etficiency of the whole system is increased by lowering the ultimate speed of air leaving the system. This implies moving large masses of air and therefore large surfaces. This means low specific lift per unit surface of wing. To increase the lift per unit surface, in the cases in which this is necessary, the air after having entered the cylindrical pressure chamber (12 of Fig. 6) of the pump may be heated by means of a burner (Fig. 8) placed in said part. Thus the volume of air is increased causing a higher exit velocity. The pressure gradient is thus larger, and higher specific lift results.

Referring more specifically to the figures:

Fig. 1 illustrates the air foil or wing of an airplane in which my jet pump reactor, such as illustrated in Fig. 2, Fig. 4 or Fig. 6, may be used. For purposes of illustration it has been designated by the numeral 1, but within the sections indicated any suitable number of reactor units, such as 15 (Fig. 6), may be used. The reactor chamber or chambers are covered by flaps 2 which in horizontal flight would be closed.

Fig. 2 shows one type of jet reactor and illustrates the simple principle upon which it operates. Air 3, from a compressor (not shown) is fed into the nozzle 4. Circular nozzle 4 having an opening 30 is positioned at the head of the pump or pump housing which comprises a cylindrical portion 5 having a flaring mouth at the upper end through which atmospheric air 38 is drawn; a pressure rise taper 32, and a lower cylindrical portion or plenum 33 which at its extreme end is constricted to form a nozzle 34. Both nozzles have the same object, i'.e., to accelerate a mass of fluid. The upper nozzle acts upon the small amount of air coming from the compressor and giving it a high velocity, whereas the lower end nozzle 4 acts 29;! the cati ant i i a le a i at a lower speed.

Support 6 positions the jet nozzle within the pump 5. In this construction the high speed air will carry along through friction a large volume of atmospheric air and will mix in the cylindrical pump, and give to this large mass an increase in speed.

Fig. 4 illustrates a similar pump having an upper cylindrical portion 5, a pressure rise taper 35, a lower cylindrical portion or plenum 36, and a lower nozzle 37. Supports 7 position the jet nozzle 8 having an opening 31 in the center of the pump. This modification produces a central jet of air in a hollow hose formation rather than coming from a simple circular opening as in Fig. 2. in general, this type may be sometimes more efficient than the single opening jet inasmuch as masses of air 40 are added to the high velocity air 3 from the jet at the center as well as to the outside portions of the air 39.

Fig. 6 is a modification of the two preceding pumps and illustrates a unit field 15 comprising a series of jet nozzles 9 which are connected to a compressor. The air 3 from the compressor flows to nozzles 9 by following a circuitous path around the pumps or main stream openings in the reactor unit. The air from the compressor surrounds the main stream pipe openings in the reactor and passes to each of the high speed jets. Referring to the crosssectional view Fig. 12, the free space remaining between the outside walls of adjacent pumps 16 form the circuitous passageway for air from opening 3 leading to the nozzles 9 of individual pumps 16.

Upon leaving the mouths of the nozzles this air mixes with air from the atmosphere flowing in through the hexagonal openings 10 in the wing of the plane 1, 23, or 25. These upper hexagonal openings 10, which are opened to the atmosphere, merge into a cylindrical area 16 and at their lower portions taper to form a frustoconical surface 11. At the lower end of this mixing and pressure rising chamber, the air passes into a pressure chamber or plenum 12 and then out through the nozzle 41 at the bottom of the airplane or wing where we have a huge mass of air accelerated at a moderate speed.

If it is desired to increase the speed of the moving mass of air a series of heaters 13 may be positioned in the pressure chamber 12 as illustrated in Fig. 8. These heaters are fed by a fuel line 14, and as the mass of air passes downwardly through the pressure chamber, in passing through and around the heater elements, expands and obtains increased speed. The lower end of pressure chamber 12 terminates in a nozzle 41 just as does the pump 5 of Figs. 2 and 4. The reaction units can at the same time be made part of the structure of the wing and in this way lower the weight of the construction.

Fig. 7 illustrates a plan view of the reactor unit of Fig. 6 illustratingthe hexagonal upper end of the pump as well as the intermediate central cylindrical section 16 which merges into a tapering frustoconical section 11, as men tioned before.

Between each of the pump elements are inner spaces 17 as shown in Fig. 12 through which the air from the compressor passes through and around the wall elements of the pump.

Fig. 9 shows a flying wing 25 having an inlet scoop 18 leading to a compressor 19 which is operated by a gas turbine 20 having an exhaust 21. The air from compressor 19 passes through compressor ducts 22 to the unit fields around the flying wing. The unit fields 15 around the central portion of the flying wing are composed of a series of jet pumps 5 as illustrated in Figs. 2. and 4. These fields-are also illustrated in Figs. 6, 7 and 8.

Fig. 10 is a plan view showing the location in a flying wing of various fields 15 of jet reactor units positioned in the wing.

Fig. 11 illustrates another application of my invention in a supersonic wing 23 wherein the heat generated in the wing due to high speed is cooled by the air from the compressor which in turn'is heated and expands. This heated air is fed into. the pump elements placed at the upper surface of the wing and, through suction, creates a strong depression at the top of the wing and passes out, together with the sucked air, through the bottom of the wing. Lift is thereby given to the plane with a minimum of energy from the compressor, the friction losses caused by supersonic flow being recuperated. The drag is also reduced owing to the fact that the wing can be used at zero incidence and be of symmetrical profile.

Fig. 12 is a cross-sectional view taken on line 12-12 of Fig. 6 and shows the various jet pumps 16 in a field 15. These fields are preferably positioned in the wing of an airplane or in a flying Wing. Fig. 12 illustrates an airplane 41 having unit fields 15 in the wing. Air is fed through the inlet port 42 to the turbo jet. A compressor 43 compresses air into a tap in the side of the compressor and through ducts or conduits 44 air is supplied to the various fields of jet pumps as well as to the combustion chamber 45. From combustion chamber 45 the propulsion fluid passes to turbine 46 and then through to exhaust pipe 47, and finally through exhaust port 48. The secondary air passing through conduits 44 goes to the field of jet pumps and serves as a lifting medium.

Fig. 14 is an enlarged view showing the relative proportions between the jet pumps in field 49. 49 indicates the rivets securing the field to web 50, which in turn is secured to girder 51. 'Baflie 52 serves to form a nozzle 53 at the lower end of chamber 12.

While I have illustrated several modifications of my invention I do not desire to be restricted by anything except as provided by the attached claims.

What I claim is:

l. A jet reactor comprising a series of jet pumps positioned contiguous to each other, each of said pump units comprising a nozzle connected to a compressor, a housing surrounding said nozzle, said housing being open at the top and at its bottom so that a limited quantity of air passing through said nozzle at high speed will mix with a huge volume of air entering through the top of said housing and the combined quantities will leave the bottom of said housing while exerting force in an upwardly direction, and a pressure chamber positioned adjacent the ends of said pump units, said pressure chamber having a nozzle at its lower end.

2. A jet reactor as set forth in claim 1, in which burner elements are provided in said pressure chamber to heat and thereby expand and move the air faster and exert greater lifting force.

3. A jet reactor as set forth in claim 2 positioned within the wing of an airplane, said wing having open and closable flaps thereon to make the reactor unit operative or inoperative.

4. In an airplane wherein a vertical lift is desired, a jet reactor comprising a nozzle through which air at high velocity is passed, a housing surrounding said nozzle, said nozzle positioned centrally of said housing by means of supports, said housing being cylindrical in its upper portion and ending in an outwardly extending flaring intake, said cylindrical house tapering to an enlarged area towards its lower portion and narrowing suddenly into a second nozzle whereby air passing through said first nozzle at high speed will mix with a large quantity of air Within the housing and will impart momentum to the air within the housing so as to exert a large force at its second nozzle end, said jet reactor comp-rising a series of nozzles, said nozzles arranged in banks, said banks of nozzles being arranged at right angles to said plane so as to provide for a vertical force, said jet reactor forming an integral structural part of said airplane and reinforcing the same.

5. A jet reactor comprising a series of jet pumps positioned contiguous to each other, each of said pump units comprising a nozzle connected to a compressor, a

housing surrounding said nozzle, said housing being open at'the top and at its bottom so that a limited quantity of 'air passing through said nozzle at high speed will mix with a huge volume of air entering through the top of said housing and the combined quantities will leave the bottom of said housing while exerting force in an upwardly direction, said jet reactor comprising a series of jet pumps arranged in banks to form a flying wing, a pressure chamber, said pressure chamber being operatively positioned adjacent the lower end of said banks of said jet pumps whereby the air from said jet pumps will move a large mass of air at a relatively low velocity in a downwardly direction.

6. In a device as set forth in claim 5 in which heating elements are provided in said pressure chamber to expand said air and thereby exert a greater lifting force.

7. A jet reactor comprising a series of jet pumps positioned contiguous to each other, each of said pump units comprising a nozzle connected to a compressor, a housing surrounding said nozzle, said housing being open at the top and at its bottom so that a limited quantity of air passing through said nozzle at high speed will mix with a huge volume of air entering through the top of said housing and the combined quantities will leave the bottom of said housing while exerting force in an upwardly direction, and each pump having separate pressure chambers positioned adjacent and below the end of each pump unit, said pressure chambers each having a nozzle at its lower end.

8. A jet reactor comprising a series of jet pumps, said pumps being contiguous, each of said jet pumps being surrounded by a plurality of similar jet pumps, each of said jet pumps comprising a nozzle and a housing, said nozzle connected to a compressor, said housing surrounding said nozzle, said housing being open at the top and at its bottom so that a limited quantity of air passing through said nozzle at high speed will mix with a huge volume of air entering through the top of said housing and will leave the bottom of said housing while exerting force, and the combined quantities will enter separate pressure chambers, said pressure chambers flaring to an enlarged area and subsequently narrowing into a second nozzle.

9. A device as set forth in claim 8, wherein a central aperture is provided for the nozzle, and said nozzle is placed concentrically within said housing.

10. A device as set forth in claim 8 whereby a cylindrical aperture is provided in said nozzle and slow moving air is permitted to enter and to mix with the high velocity stream at the center of said air stream as well as around the outside, and to move said entire air mass in a downward direction and thereby exert a lifting force.

11. In an airplane wherein a vertical lift is desired, a jet reactor comprising a series of jet pumps, each pump having a nozzle through which air at high velocity is passed, a housing surrounding said nozzle, said nozzle positioned centrally of said housing by means of supports, said housing being cylindrical in its upper portion and ending in an outwardly extending flaring intake, said cylindrical housing flaring to an enlarged area towards its lower portion and narrowing suddenly into a second nozzle whereby air passing through said first nozzle at high speed will mix with a large quantity of air within the housing and will impart momentum to the air within the housing so as to exert a large force at its second nozzle end.

12. A method of providing a vertical lifting component to an airplane comprising a series of jet pumps, using a small quantity of compressed air, passing said air through a nozzle, mixing said small quantity of compressed air at high velocity with a large quantity of slower moving air, passing said mixed air through a gradually enlarging chamber whereby the pressure increases and then passing it through a restricted nozzle so that the maximum force will be exerted in a vertical direction.

is. In :an airplane of the flying wing variety, 3' 3a reactor comprising a series of contiguous jet pumps," each jet pump surrounded by a plurality of jet pumps 'lraving a downwardly directed high speed nozzle and utilizing atmosphei'icair, a housing wherein said high speed nozzle is spaced equally from all sides thereof and wherein said air passing through said high speed downwardly directed nozzle will mix with and cause movement of an additional mass of air and create a force in an upward direction, and a plenum chamber positioned below Said nozzles through which said air will pass after leaving said nozzles, said plenum chamber having a tapering nozzle at its lower end.

14. In an airplane as set forth in claim 11 in which a series of jet reactors are used, said jet reactors being positioned entirely within-the wings of the airplane, said jet reactors forming an integral part of and extending throughout the entire overall thickness of the airplane and reinforcing the same.

8 References Gited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS Lecuyer .Feb. 24, 1920 Morize Apr. 19, 1921 Kirgan June 5, 1923 Betty Dec. 31, 1929 Bauer Dec. 29, 1931 McCaskie Feb. 9, 1932 Arkin et al July 11, 1939 Silvester Apr. 6, 1948 Zingg Mar. 15, 1949 Sharpe May 3, 1949 Johnstone Apr. 12, 1955 Doak Jan. 10, 1956 FOREIGN PATENTS Italy NOV. 2; 1948 France Sept. 7, 1936 

